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Nonprofits can—and ought to—engage in a wide range of civic and election-related activities.

Since 1973, I have started or led 14 nonprofit enterprises in the arts, community development, and civic engagement sectors. I have been a managing director, a board member, a board president, a consultant to nonprofits, and taught college courses on nonprofit management and policy at several Chicago universities. Lately, I have been growing tired of the limits of the nonprofit sector, however, both in terms of its dependence on funders and, most importantly, in terms of its political power.

The lack of power is concerning, especially in the wake of the 2024 election. Even as the total number of nonprofits, number of workers, total of combined budgets, and their economic impacts rise, the nonprofit sector remains a surprisingly weak actor when it comes to effecting meaningful social change.

You could say that this is by design. After all, 501c3 nonprofits cannot endorse candidates for public office. But, even with that restriction, nonprofits can—and ought to—engage in a wide range of civic and get-out-the-vote and related election activities. These permitted activities include lobbying, voter registration, voter education, candidate forums, issue forums, leadership training, and even training people to run for office and to manage political and issue campaigns. Two extremely effective organizations pushing work in this space are the Alliance for Justice’s Bolder Advocacy program and Nonprofit VOTE. But too many nonprofits remain on the political sidelines.

Decades of Studies Document Nonprofits’ Advocacy Shortfalls

The idea that nonprofits should engage in more advocacy than they do is hardly novel. One early critique of the nonprofit sector’s ability to impact large-scale change appears in the 2001 paper, “The Decline of Progressive Policy and the New Philanthropy” by Robert O. Bothwell, professor emeritus at the University of Toronto. Bothwell charts the arc of American philanthropy over the prior 40 years with a focus on progressive, issue-oriented advocacy work. He wrote, “[P]rogressive advocacy organizations continue to work within their policy silos, often hampered as much by their foundation funding as helped.” Based on Bothwell’s writings, the conclusion is stark: Our funders have killed this work.

Jump forward to 2007: The book Seen but not Heard—Strengthening Nonprofit Advocacy, authored by a team of researchers and published by the Aspen Institute, reported that nonprofits participate sporadically and infrequently on public policy, based on a survey of 1,738 organizations. In a summary of the book, the Aspen Institute asserts, “[I]f nonprofits want to pursue their organizational missions effectively, they need to be actively engaged in public policy. . . . [A] cultural change is needed that returns the country to an earlier time when nonprofit advocacy, including lobbying, was a more frequent activity.”

Nonprofits with the most extraordinary levels of impact do not focus exclusively on either advocacy or direct service; rather, the highest-performing nonprofits do both.

Five years later, in 2012, Independent Sector published a 254-page study called Beyond the Cause: The Art and Science of Advocacy. The study, funded by the Gates Foundation, was based on more than 100 interviews, three surveys, three case studies, four coalition profiles, and a detailed examination of the nonprofit sector’s track record and approach to advocacy. The study concluded, not very helpfully, that “the way in which organizations engage in sector-wide issues will not yield consistently positive results except in isolated instances, because these organizations lack the incentives to work together and a structure that enables the pooling of resources [emphasis added], among other considerations.”

Next, we jump to a 2019 report from the National Council of Nonprofits called Nonprofit Impact Matters: How America’s Charitable Nonprofits Strengthen Communities and Improve Lives, that sought to find “emerging trends, common concerns, and adaptable solutions” in the nonprofit sector.

Filled with many assertions of nonprofits’ benefits to society, this report buries the lede, noting on page 34:

“Research shows that nonprofits with the most extraordinary levels of impact do not focus exclusively on either advocacy or direct service; rather, the highest-performing nonprofits do both, creating a virtuous cycle in which policy advocacy and service delivery each inform and enhance the impact of the other. Yet, compared to the business sector and government sector, nonprofits have been sitting silently on the sidelines [emphasis added].”

Even when nonprofits do engage in advocacy, such efforts often fail to mobilize sector supporters, where nonprofits’ true power lies.

On average, the study found that fewer than 3 percent of nonprofits engaged in any lobbying at the local, state, or federal levels. Just 3 percent, compared to the 100 percent with the legal right to do so.

Most recently, in 2023, Independent Sector published a report titled The Retreat of Influence: Exploring the Decline of Nonprofit Advocacy and Public Engagement that focuses specifically on the participation of nonprofits on public policy. A press release laid out some of the report’s depressing findings:

  • A significantly lower proportion of nonprofits report advocating or lobbying compared to 20 years ago. Only 31% of nonprofits report engaging in advocacy or lobbying over the last five years—less than half the percentage in 2000.
  • Significantly fewer nonprofits know what advocacy activities are legally allowed compared to 20 years ago. In 2000, over half of 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charities knew they could support or oppose federal legislation, compared to fewer than one-third [in 2023].
  • Only 13% of nonprofits conduct nonpartisan activities to help people vote, despite being more effective than any other type of organization in getting people of all political persuasions to vote. Among nonprofits that advocate, 1 in 5 provide people with nonpartisan voter information.
  • Although the majority of nonprofits have a diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) statement, only 36% engage in policy activities to create more equitable systems. However, nonprofits that engage in public policy invest more time and resources in DEI activities than nonprofits that do not engage in public policy.

A Learned Helplessness

Even when nonprofits do engage in advocacy, such efforts often fail to mobilize sector supporters, where nonprofits’ true power lies. Take, for example, the joint statement issued by the Council on Foundations, Independent Sector, National Council of Nonprofits, and United Philanthropy Forum in April to condemn federal’s attacks on Harvard University and the politicization of the Internal Revenue Service. The statement speaks to a learned helplessness, meekly concluding: “Our democracy depends on a strong, vibrant and independent civil society. Undermining it—for any reason, by any leader—is a threat we cannot and will not ignore.”

This may sound supportive, but lacks a call for action. There is no mention of the millions of people who are employed by the nonprofit sector, the tens of millions who support it, or the hundreds of millions who benefit from it—to say nothing of the millions who will be voting in the next election. This statement, in short, gives people nothing to do. It fails to live up to the moment and the contemporary crisis facing US democratic institutions, and I daresay, this example is far from unique. We must do better.

It’s Time to Get Serious About Advocacy

Let’s dig deeper and change the order of business. Contributions to nonprofits in 2023 exceeded $577 billion. But when it comes to advocacy, there is very little to show for that.

We need some specific advocacy goals if we want to be effective. Here is my short list of some very objective possible movement goals:

  1. Register 10 million people to vote—especially people of color, people younger than 25, people in neglected and disinvested communities.
  2. Inspire and train 10,000 servant leaders (that is, leaders who seek to serve the community rather than dominate or profit) to conduct public meetings, lift up the public sector, and lead a new movement: “More Love. More Power. More Public!”
  3. Recruit, inspire, train, and equip 100,000 of these transformative leaders to run for local office in 2026 (assuming we still have elections) as advocates for the public sector, science, equity, justice, peace, and prosperity—and who pledge to champion those values once in office.
  4. Build a national platform to continue this work and support these leaders in their journey to serve and govern. One such attempt at this sort of organizing is the 100K Project, which I lead, together with a steering committee, and is just getting off the ground.

Maybe this can occur through the nonprofit sector. Maybe this will require operating outside the nonprofit framework. What is clear, however, is that America’s democracy will survive only if we learn to ditch our powerlessness and get serious about political advocacy.